South African Students' Tuition Fee Protest

[Oh1one]

This has been ongoing for the last 2 weeks but almost all universities got involved in the past week.

Wits, Rhodes and UCT which are historically White universities were the loudest in the last 2 weeks. Then when TUT, a HBU joined, all hell broke loose. HBUs have been protesting forever against university tuition fees but the feeling was that they were not given an ear, only when probably the top 3 (definitely top 5) universities in the country spoke did everyone listen.

The President eventually agreed not to raise 2016 tuition fees (they would've gone up by 6% - 15% at various varsities).

The protests will continue in the coming week though as some of the students' demands haven't been met (such as discontinuing of outsourcing university workers).

Protest by UCT students outside Parliament

Fort Hare (HBU) - University management had to backtrack on not allowing anyone with more than 60% outstanding on tuition fees to write end of year exams.

UCT

Protest at the Union Buildings (Basically like our White House) in the Capital, Pretoria

#JoburgShutDown March to ANC (Governing party) head offices in Joburg by University of Joburg and WITS students. The red shirts are from the 2nd largest opposition party (Economic Freedom Fighters), the green, yellow and black belong to the ANC.

South Africa's huge student protests, explained

Watch our 11 minute film capturing the energies of #FeesMustFall in South Africa

 

[Oh1one]

'the oppressor becomes the oppressed" not sure who that quote is from but that's where the problem is in South Africa. ANC government has gone from liberator/oppressed to oppressor.

They don't want to see a strong, educated middle class. Took me about 5 years to pay back my Government funded student loan and I've held down decent jobs and come from an OK family. A lot of students come from poor families and usually get OK paying jobs (not well paying) where even coming up with R10 000 (about $900) for registration is impossible.

 

[AJaRuleStan]

In the video they came up with a rather humorous hypothesis to explain the increasing of college tuition, which went something like this - the Gov't is cutting back on subsidies because it doesn't want us to learn, and they don't want us to learn because the gov't is modeled after white colonialism which is evil.

I only say it's humorous because they managed to link white people to the "cause" of this so called problem. And that they provided zero evidence to prove that the gov't decision to cutback on spending was done maliciously instead of it being a simple case of "changed circumstance" within the economy.

Also, the rhetoric regarding free college being some cosmic right that they must have was really unsettling because it really highlights how illiterate these college kids are to economic realities. I think they truly believe that there is an abundance of resources within their society for educating the population, and the only reason why their not receiving said resources is because of evil "ppl" not wanting them too.

 

[Tate]

Collective mass action

 

[Oh1one]

In the video they came up with a rather humorous hypothesis to explain the increasing of college tuition, which went something like this - the Gov't is cutting back on subsidies because it doesn't want us to learn, and they don't want us to learn because the gov't is modeled after white colonialism which is evil.

I only say it's humorous because they managed to link white people to the "cause" of this so called problem. And that they provided zero evidence to prove that the gov't decision to cutback on spending was done maliciously instead of it being a simple case of "changed circumstance" within the economy.

Also, the rhetoric regarding free college being some cosmic right that they must have was really unsettling because it really highlights how illiterate these college kids are to economic realities. I think they truly believe that there is an abundance of resources within their society for educating the population, and the only reason why their not receiving said resources is because of evil "ppl" not wanting them too.

You have to remember that this is South Africa. Black people were only allowed to vote for the first time 21 years ago.

So White oppression, even for these 20 year olds, is still fresh in their minds and we're still experiencing it.

The government may be black but the economy is still white.

Secondly, when you see the continuous bail out of failing entities, waste on security and travel and how large politicians are living on tax money, you start believing that a free education is possible.

Everyone is angry at the government and I believe this is the start of the tipping point in the same way the Student Uprising of 1976 was a tipping point for this country.

 

[TTT]

I don't think the students have thought through the implications of free education and the time frame they expect for it to happen. It won't happen immediately, that is certain, but their protests had multiple messages at once it reminded me of how the Occupy Movement petered out. There are people who were protesting for a 0% fee increment and others who are fighting for free education, outsourcing etc. The 0% part got them attention but I am doubtful they can keep up the free education part. If all those Universities abolish tuition and they get to rely on the State for the majority of their funds they will lose whatever autonomy they had and judging by the relationship between the State in general and academia it will lead to another round of protests but this time by faculty. Zimbabwe started losing most of its academia that way when the State started intruding a lot more into academic freedom and I am sure an ANC Government won't be any different. There really isn't any clear political winner from what i see, the ANC reportedly looked at the free education proposal and said it would mean cutting down on social grants and that says it all. The ANC would prefer to keep the social grants given to a very large proportion of the population translating into more votes and weather the storm of student protests.